Search results for: firm performance effectiveness

Authors: Ramy H. Mohammed

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In heat sinks, the flow within the core exhibits separation and hence does not lend itself to simple analytical boundary layer or duct flow analysis of the wall friction. In this paper, I present some findings from an experimental and numerical study aimed to obtain physical insight into the influence of the presence of the shield and its position on the hydraulic and thermal performance of square pin fin heat sink without top by-pass. The variations of the Nusselt number and friction factor are obtained under varied parameters, such as the Reynolds number and the shield position. The numerical code is validated by comparing the numerical results with the available experimental data. It is shown that, there is a good agreement between the temperature predictions based on the model and the experimental data. Results show that, as the presence of the shield, the heat transfer of fin array is enhanced and the flow resistance increased. The surface temperature distribution of the heat sink base is more uniform when the dimensionless shield position equals to 1/3 or 2/3. The comprehensive performance evaluation approach based on identical pumping power criteria is adopted and shows that the optimum shield position is at x/l=0.43 where energy is saved.

Keywords: shield, fin array, performance evaluation, heat transfer, energy

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Authors: Caio E. G. Reis, Sara Wassell, Adriana L. Porto, Angélica A. Amato, Leslie J. C. Bluck, Teresa H. M. da Costa

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Background: Multiple epidemiologic studies have consistently reported association between increased coffee consumption and a lowered risk of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. However, the mechanisms behind this finding have not been fully elucidated. Objective: We investigate the effect of coffee (caffeinated and decaffeinated) on glucose effectiveness and insulin sensitivity using the stable isotope minimal model protocol with oral glucose administration in healthy men. Design: Fifteen healthy men underwent 5 arms randomized crossover single-blinding (researchers) clinical trial. They consumed decaffeinated coffee, caffeinated coffee (with and without sugar), and controls – water (with and without sugar) followed 1 hour by an oral glucose tolerance test (75 g of available carbohydrate) with intravenous labeled dosing interpreted by the two compartment minimal model (225 minutes). One-way ANOVA with Bonferroni adjustment were used to compare the effects of the tested beverages on glucose metabolism parameters. Results: Decaffeinated coffee resulted in 29% and 85% higher insulin sensitivity compared with caffeinated coffee and water, respectively, and the caffeinated coffee showed 15% and 60% higher glucose effectiveness compared with decaffeinated coffee and water, respectively. However, these differences were not significant (p > 0.10). In overall analyze (0 – 225 min) there were no significant differences on glucose effectiveness, insulin sensitivity, and glucose and insulin area under the curve between the groups. The beneficial effects of coffee did not seem to act in the short-term (hours) on glucose metabolism parameters mainly on insulin sensitivity indices. The benefits of coffee consumption occur in the long-term (years) as has been shown in the reduction of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus risk in epidemiological studies. The clinical relevance of the present findings is that there is no need to avoid coffee as the drink choice for healthy people. Conclusions: The findings of this study demonstrate that the consumption of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee with or without sugar has no acute effects on glucose metabolism in healthy men. Further researches, including long-term interventional studies, are needed to fully elucidate the mechanisms behind the coffee effects on reduced risk for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

Keywords: coffee, diabetes mellitus type 2, glucose, insulin

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Authors: A. Al-Rashidi, A. El-Hamalawi

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In this paper, a performance study was conducted to investigate single and dual-axis PV systems to generate electricity in five different sites in Kuwait. Relevant data were obtained by using two sources for validation purposes. A commercial software, PVsyst, was used to analyse the data, such as metrological data and other input parameters, and compute the performance parameters such as capacity factor (CF) and final yield (YF). The results indicated that single and dual-axis PV systems would be very beneficial to electricity generation in Kuwait as an alternative source to conventional power plants, especially with the increased demand over time. The ranges were also found to be competitive in comparison to leading countries using similar systems. A significant increase in CF and YF values around 24% and 28.8% was achieved related to the use of single and dual systems, respectively.

Keywords: single-axis and dual-axis photovoltaic systems, capacity factor, final yield, Kuwait

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Authors: M. Ben Slimene, M.-S. Ouali

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Asset management of urban infrastructures faces a multitude of challenges that need to be overcome to obtain a reliable measurement of performances. Predicting the performance of slowly aging systems is one of those challenges, which helps the asset manager to investigate specific failure modes and to undertake the appropriate maintenance and rehabilitation interventions to avoid catastrophic failures as well as to optimize the maintenance costs. This article presents a methodology for modeling the deterioration of slowly degrading assets based on an operating history. It consists of extracting degradation profiles by grouping together assets that exhibit similar degradation sequences using an unsupervised classification technique derived from artificial intelligence. The obtained clusters are used to build the performance prediction models. This methodology is applied to a sample of a stormwater drainage culvert dataset.

Keywords: artificial Intelligence, clustering, culvert, regression model, slow degradation

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Authors: Deborah O. Ajumobi, Michael Kyobe

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Studies show that women entrepreneurs are constrained and faced with challenges that inhibit the growth and performance of their businesses. However, with their human competencies, mobile technology and the appropriate business strategy, women-led SMEs can steer their businesses to better performance. While the need for SMEs to align these three elements has been suggested, there is limited knowledge on how SMEs can achieve this and no studies to the authors’ knowledge have examined this in women-led SMEs. This study therefore seeks to fill this gap by investigating how Women-led SMEs can best align these three elements to enhance business performance. In light of this, extensive literature review and theoretical work on the phenomenon has been conducted. Given the existence of the interplay between these three elements, we argue that the perspective of alignment as gestalts is most appropriate in determining the best way women-Led SMEs may align these aspects.

Keywords: women-led SMEs, human Competencies, mobile technology, business strategy, alignment

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Authors: Ganesh Nivrutti Akhade

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This paper attempts to develop a reliable and valid instrument of measuring Healthcare service quality in India, and also analyses the impact of demographic factor of respondent on healthcare service quality. In this research paper , extant literature survey, discussion with stakeholder of healthcare system such as patients, patients relative, administrators of hospitals, clinics, professionals and expert interviews were used to develop a attributes of healthcare service quality dimensions. A pilot study was conducted with a sample of 31 healthcare patients of private sector, public sector ,trust hospital ,primary health care centers and clinics was surveyed in the Nagpur Metropolitan Area. At the end fifteen dimensions—reliability, assurance, responsiveness, tangibility, empathy, affordability, respect, and caring, Attitude of staff, Technical competence, Appropriateness, Safety, continuity, Effectiveness, Availability, Financial support. This fifteen-dimensional model was validated through a content validity and construct validity. The proposed research model shows acceptable fit indices. Impact of these dimensions on the Overall Healthcare Service Quality and customer satisfaction are analyzed using multiple regression technique. Findings indicate that all dimensions carry significant impact on the Overall Healthcare Service Quality perceptions and customer satisfaction. However, availability and effectiveness dimensions carry the maximum impact on the Overall healthcare Service Quality .

Keywords: healthcare, service quality, factor analysis (CFA), india, service quality dimensions

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Authors: Feng-Tsung Cheng, Shu-Li Wang, Mei-Fang Wu, , Hui-Yu Chuang

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Due to the rapid development of modern technology, the widespread usage of the Internet makes business environment changing quickly. In order to be a leader in the global competitive market and to pursuit survive, “changing” becomes an unspoken rules need to follow for the company survival. The purpose of this paper is to build change model by using SWOT, strategy map, and balance scorecard, KPI and change management theory. The research findings indicate that organizational change plan formulated by the case company should require the employee to resist change factors and performance management system issues into consideration and must be set organizational change related programs, such as performance appraisal reward system, consulting and counseling mechanisms programs to improve motivation and reduce staff negative emotions. Then according to the model revised strategy maps and performance indicators proposed in this paper, such as strategy maps add and modify corporate culture, improve internal processes management, increase the growth rate of net income and other strategies. The performance indicators are based on strategy maps new and modified by adding net income growth rate, to achieve target production rate, manpower training achievement rates and other indicators, through amendments to achieve the company’s goal, be a leading brand of precision machinery industry.

Keywords: organizational change, SWOT analysis, strategy maps, performance indicators

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Authors: Olivia A. Kjorlien, Maryam Asghari, Farshid Alizadeh-Shabdiz

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The goal of this paper is to investigate the impact of mosaic augmentation on the performance of object detection solutions. To carry out the study, YOLOv4 and YOLOv4-Tiny models have been selected, which are popular, advanced object detection models. These models are also representatives of two classes of complex and simple models. The study also has been carried out on two categories of objects, simple and complex. For this study, YOLOv4 and YOLOv4 Tiny are trained with and without mosaic augmentation for two sets of objects. While mosaic augmentation improves the performance of simple object detection, it deteriorates the performance of complex object detection, specifically having the largest negative impact on the false positive rate in a complex object detection case.

Keywords: accuracy, false positives, mosaic augmentation, object detection, YOLOV4, YOLOV4-Tiny

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Authors: Mohammad Soliman, Mohamed A. Abou-Shouk

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Knowledge management focuses on the development, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of information and expertise. It has become an important tool to improve performance in tourism enterprises. This includes improving decision-making, developing customer services, and increasing sales and profits. Knowledge management adoption depends on human, organizational and technological factors. This study aims to explore the concept of knowledge management in travel agents in Egypt. It explores the requirements of adoption and its impact on performance in these agencies. The study targets Category A travel agents in Egypt. The population of the study encompasses Category A travel agents having online presence. An online questionnaire is used to collect data from managers of travel agents. This study is useful for travel agents who are in urgent need to restructure their intermediary role and support their survival in the global travel market. The study sheds light on the requirements of adoption and the expected impact on performance. This could help travel agents identify their situation and the determine the extent to which they are ready to adopt knowledge management. This study is contributing to knowledge by providing insights from the tourism sector in a developing country where the concept of knowledge management is still in its infancy stages.

Keywords: knowledge management, knowledge management adoption, performance, travel agents

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Authors: Ju Peng Poh, Jun Yu Charles Lee, Jonathan Chew Hoe Khoo

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The emergence of digital twin technology, a digital replica of physical world, has improved the real-time access to data from sensors about the performance of buildings. This digital transformation has opened up many opportunities to improve the management of the building by using the data collected to help monitor consumption patterns and energy leakages. One example is the integration of predictive models for anomaly detection. In this paper, we use the GAM (Generalised Additive Model) for the anomaly detection of Air Handling Units (AHU) power consumption pattern. There is ample research work on the use of GAM for the prediction of power consumption at the office building and nation-wide level. However, there is limited illustration of its anomaly detection capabilities, prescriptive analytics case study, and its integration with the latest development of digital twin technology. In this paper, we applied the general GAM modelling framework on the historical data of the AHU power consumption and cooling load of the building between Jan 2018 to Aug 2019 from an education campus in Singapore to train prediction models that, in turn, yield predicted values and ranges. The historical data are seamlessly extracted from the digital twin for modelling purposes. We enhanced the utility of the GAM model by using it to power a real-time anomaly detection system based on the forward predicted ranges. The magnitude of deviation from the upper and lower bounds of the uncertainty intervals is used to inform and identify anomalous data points, all based on historical data, without explicit intervention from domain experts. Notwithstanding, the domain expert fits in through an optional feedback loop through which iterative data cleansing is performed. After an anomalously high or low level of power consumption detected, a set of rule-based conditions are evaluated in real-time to help determine the next course of action for the facilities manager. The performance of GAM is then compared with other approaches to evaluate its effectiveness. Lastly, we discuss the successfully deployment of this approach for the detection of anomalous power consumption pattern and illustrated with real-world use cases.

Keywords: anomaly detection, digital twin, generalised additive model, GAM, power consumption, supervised learning

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Authors: Robert P. Dufresne, Hamid Arabzadeh

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The current study investigates the effectiveness of a new form of permanent baseboard insulators with an umbrella action, hereinafter referred to as Coronary Insulator, in supporting and protecting the assembly of electrodes immersed in an electrolytic cell and in increasing the lifespan of the lateral sides of the electrolytic cell, in both electro-winning and electro-refinery method. The advantages of using a coronary insulator in addition to the top capping board (equipotential insulator) were studied compared to the conventional assembly of an electrolytic cell. Then, a thermal imaging technique was utilized during high-temperature thermal (heat transfer) tests for sample cell walls with and without coronary insulators in their assembly to show the effectiveness of coronary insulators in protecting the cell wall under extreme conditions. It was shown that, unlike the conventional assembly, which is highly prone to damages to the cell wall under thermal shocks, the presence of coronary insulator can significantly increase the level of protection of the cell due to their ultra-high thermal and chemical resistance, as well as decreasing the replacement frequency of insulators to almost zero. Besides, the results of the study showed that the test assembly with the coronary insulator provides better consistency in positioning and, subsequently, better contact, compared to the conventional method, which reduces the chance of electric short-circuit in the system.

Keywords: capping board, coronary insulator, electrolytic cell, thermal shock.

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Authors: Shrikaant Kulkarni, Akshata Naik Nimbalkar

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In this worki a method protocol has been developed for the synthesis of innovative Co3O4 material by using a method of chemical synthesis followed by calcination. The effect of calcination temperature on the morphology, structure and catalytic performance on material in question is investigated by using characterization tools like scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy and electrochemical techniques. The SEM images reveal that the morphology of the Co3O4 material undergoes a change from the rod to a beadlike shape on calcination at temperature of 700 °C. The XRD image shows that although the morphology of synthesized Co3O4 material exhibits a cubic phase but it differs in crystallinity depending upon morphology. Similarly spherical beadlike Co3O4 material has exhibited better activity than its rodlike counterpart which is reflected from electrochemical findings. Further, its performance in terms of bifunctional nature and hlods a lot much of promise as a excellent electrode material in the next generation batteries and fuel cells.

Keywords: bifunctional, next generation material, Co3O4, XRD

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Authors: Arlan S. Freitas, Leila M. Carvalho, Adriana L. Soares, Arnoud Neto, Marta S. Madruga, Rafael H. Carvalho, Elza I. Ida, Massami Shimokomaki

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The objective of this work was to evaluate the influence of microclimatic profile of broiler transport trucks and holding time (340) min under commercial conditions over the breast meat quality and DOA (Dead On Arrival) in a tropical Brazilian regions as the NorthEast. In this particular region routinely the season is divided into dry and wet seasons. Three loads of 4,100 forty seven days old broiler were monitored from farm to slaughterhouse in a distance of 273 km (320 min), morning periods of August, September and October 2015 rainy days. Meat qualities were evaluated by determining the occurrence of PSE (pale, soft, exudative) meat and DFD (dark, firm, dry) meat. The percentage of DOA per loaded truck was determined by counting the dead broiler during the hanging step at the slaughtering plant. Results showed the occurrence of 26.30% of PSE and 2.49% of DFD and 0.45% of DOA. By having PSE- and DFD- meat means that the birds were under thermal and cold stress leading as consequence to a relative high DOA index.

Keywords: animal welfare, DFD, microclimatic profile, PSE

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Authors: A. Bouabid, B. Bielenberg, S. Ainane, N. Pasha

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In this paper, a team of faculty members of the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi, UAE representing six different courses across General Engineering (ENGR), Communication (COMM), and Design (STPS) worked together to establish a clear developmental progression of learning outcomes and performance indicators for targeted knowledge, areas of competency, and skills for the first three semesters of the Bachelor of Sciences in Engineering curriculum. The sequences of courses studied in this project were ENGR/COMM, COMM/STPS, and ENGR/STPS. For each course’s nine areas of knowledge, competency, and skills, the research team reviewed the existing learning outcomes and related performance indicators with a focus on identifying linkages across disciplines as well as within the courses of a discipline. The team reviewed existing performance indicators for developmental progression from semester to semester for same discipline related courses (vertical alignment) and for different discipline courses within the same semester (horizontal alignment). The results of this work have led to recommendations for modifications of the initial indicators when incoherence was identified, and/or for new indicators based on best practices (identified through literature searches) when gaps were identified. It also led to recommendations for modifications of the level of emphasis within each course to ensure developmental progression. The exercise has led to a revised Sequence Performance Indicator Mapping for the knowledge, skills, and competencies across the six core courses.

Keywords: curriculum alignment, horizontal and vertical progression, performance indicators, skill level

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Authors: Ruchi Agarwal

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In today’s world, companies are operating in dynamic, uncertain and ambiguous business environments. Globally, more companies are failing due to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors than ever. Corporate governance and risk management are intertwined in nature. For decades, corporate governance and risk management have been influenced by internal and external factors. Three schools of thought have influenced risk governance for decades: Agency theory, Contingency theory, and Institutional theory. Agency theory argues that agents have interests conflicting with principal interests and the information problem. Contingency theory suggests that risk management adoption is influenced by internal and external factors, while Institutional theory suggests that organizations legitimize risk management with regulators, competitors, and professional bodies. The conflicting objectives of theories have created problems for executives in organizations in the adoption of Risk Governance. So far, there are many studies that discussed risk culture and the role of actors in risk governance, but there are rare studies discussing the role of risk culture in the adoption of risk governance from a leadership style perspective. This study explores the adoption of risk governance in two contrasting industries, such as the Insurance and energy business, to understand whether risk governance is influenced by internal/external factors or whether risk culture is influenced by leaders. We draw empirical evidence by comparing the cases of an Indian insurance company and a renewable energy-based firm in India. We interviewed more than 20 senior executives of companies and collected annual reports, risk management policies, and more than 10 PPTs and other reports from 2017 to 2024. We visited the company for follow-up questions several times. The findings of my research revealed that both companies have used risk governance for strategic renewal of the company. Insurance companies use a transactional leadership style based on performance and reward for improving risk, while energy companies use rather symbolic management to make debt restructuring meaningful for stakeholders. Overall, both companies turned from loss-making to profitable ones in a few years. This comparative study highlights the role of different leadership styles in the adoption of risk governance. The study is also distinct as previous research rarely studied risk governance in two contrasting industries in reference to leadership styles.

Keywords: leadership style, corporate governance, risk management, risk culture, strategic renewal

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Authors: YingWei Tan, XueFeng Ding

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Attention-based voice activity detection models have gained significant attention in recent years due to their fast training speed and ability to capture a wide contextual range. The inclusion of multi-head style and position embedding in the attention architecture are crucial. Having multiple attention heads allows for differential focus on different parts of the sequence, while position embedding provides guidance for modeling dependencies between elements at various positions in the input sequence. In this work, we propose an approach by considering each head as a node, enabling the application of graph neural networks (GNN) to identify correlations among the different nodes. In addition, we adopt an implementation named rotary position embedding (RoPE), which encodes absolute positional information into the input sequence by a rotation matrix, and naturally incorporates explicit relative position information into a self-attention module. We evaluate the effectiveness of our method on a synthetic dataset, and the results demonstrate its superiority over the baseline CRNN in scenarios with low signal-to-noise ratio and noise, while also exhibiting robustness across different noise types. In summary, our proposed framework effectively combines the strengths of CNN and RNN (LSTM), and further enhances detection performance through the integration of graph neural networks and rotary position embedding.

Keywords: voice activity detection, CRNN, graph neural networks, rotary position embedding

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Authors: Ijaz Ahmed, Anwar Zada, Muhammad Waqas, M. U. Ashraf

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We demonstrate the performance of a very efficient tagger applies on hadronically decaying top quark pairs as signal based on deep neural network algorithms and compares with the QCD multi-jet background events. A significant enhancement of performance in boosted top quark events is observed with our limited computing resources. We also compare modern machine learning approaches and perform a multivariate analysis of boosted top-pair as well as single top quark production through weak interaction at √s = 14 TeV proton-proton Collider. The most relevant known background processes are incorporated. Through the techniques of Boosted Decision Tree (BDT), likelihood and Multlayer Perceptron (MLP) the analysis is trained to observe the performance in comparison with the conventional cut based and count approach

Keywords: top tagger, multivariate, deep learning, LHC, single top

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Authors: Satpal Yadav, Biswajit Basumatary, Arvind S. Sajwan, Ranjan Chakravarty

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The purpose of the study was to assess the effect of 2D kinematical selected variables on sprint start with sprinting performance of novice athletes. Six (3 National and 3 State level) athletes of sports authority of India, Guwahati has been selected for this study. The mean (M) and standard deviation (SD) of sprinters were age (17.44, 1.55), height (1.74m, .84m), weight (62.25 kg, 4.55), arm length (65.00 cm, 3.72) and leg length (96.35 cm, 2.71). Biokin-2D motion analysis system V4.5 can be used for acquiring two-dimensional kinematical data/variables on sprint start with Sprinting Performance. For the purpose of kinematic analysis a standard motion driven camera which frequency of the camera was 60 frame/ second i.e. handy camera of Sony Company were used. The sequence of photographic was taken under controlled condition. The distance of the camera from the athletes was 12 mts away and was fixed at 1.2-meter height. The result was found that National and State level athletes significant difference in there, trajectory knee, trajectory ankle, displacement knee, displacement ankle, linear velocity knee, linear velocity ankle, and linear acceleration ankle whereas insignificant difference was found between National and State level athletes in their linear acceleration knee joint on sprint start with sprinting performance. For all the Statistical test the level of significance was set at p<0.05.

Keywords: 2D kinematic analysis, sprinting performance, novice athletes, sprint start

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Authors: Milan Paudel, Fook Fah Yap, Anil K. Bastola

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The difficulties in riding small wheel bicycles and their lesser stability have been perceived for a long time. Although small wheel bicycles are designed using the similar approach and guidelines that have worked well for big wheel bicycles, the performance of the big wheelers and the smaller wheelers are markedly different. Since both the big wheelers and small wheelers have same fundamental geometry, most blame the small wheel for this discrepancy in the performance. This paper reviews existing guidelines for bicycle design, especially the front steering geometry for the bicycle, and provides a systematic and quantitative analysis of different wheel sized bicycles. A validated mathematical model has been used as a tool to assess the dynamic performance of the bicycles in term of their self-stability. The results obtained were found to corroborate the subjective perception of cyclists for small wheel bicycles. The current approach for small wheel bicycle design requires higher speed to be self-stable. However, it was found that increasing the headtube angle and selecting a proper trail could improve the dynamic performance of small wheel bicycles. A range of parameters for front steering geometry has been identified for small wheel bicycles that have comparable stability as big wheel bicycles. Interestingly, most of the identified geometries are found to be beyond the ISO recommended range and seem to counter the current approach of small wheel bicycle design. Therefore, it was successfully shown that the guidelines for big wheelers do not translate directly to small wheelers, but careful selection of the front geometry could make small wheel bicycles as stable as big wheel bicycles.

Keywords: big wheel bicycle, design approach, ISO requirements, small wheel bicycle, stability and performance

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Authors: Minsun Kim, Ki-Sun Choi, Hyun-Jee Lee, Young-Chan You

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There is no reinforcement example for the renovation of the vertical and horizontal extension to existing building structures which is a shear wall type in apartment units in Korea. Among these existing structures, the structures which are shear wall type are rare overseas, while Korea has many shear wall apartment units. Recently, in Korea, a few researchers are trying to confirm the possibility of the vertical extension in existing building with shear walls. This study evaluates the possibility of the renovation by applying performance-based seismic design to existing buildings with shear walls in the analysis phase of the structure. In addition, force-based seismic design, used by general structural engineers in Korea, is carried out to compare the amount of reinforcement of walls, which is a main component of wall structure. As a result, we suggest that performance-based design obtains more economical advantages than force-based seismic design.

Keywords: design for extension, performance-based design, remodeling, shear wall frame, structural analysis

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Authors: Ajayi Oluwasola Felix

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This paper examines how firm investments in technology-based employee monitoring impact both misconduct and productivity. We use unique and detailed theft and sales data from 392 restaurant locations from five firms that adopt a theft monitoring information technology (IT) product. We use difference-in-differences (DD) models with staggered adoption dates to estimate the treatment effect of IT monitoring on theft and productivity. We find significant treatment effects in reduced theft and improved productivity that appear to be primarily driven by changed worker behavior rather than worker turnover. We examine four mechanisms that may drive this productivity result: economic and cognitive multitasking, fairness-based motivation, and perceived increases of general oversight. The observed productivity results represent substantial financial benefits to both firms and the legitimate tip-based earnings of workers. Our results suggest that employee misconduct is not solely a function of individual differences in ethics or morality, but can also be influenced by managerial policies that can benefit both firms and employees.

Keywords: information technology, monitoring, misconduct, employee theft

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Authors: Mahmoud Mohamed Emam

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In Oman the number of students referred for reading disabilities is on the rise. Schools serve these students by placement in the so-called learning disabilities unit. Recently the author led a strategic project to train teachers on the use of curriculum based measurement to identify students with reading disabilities in Oman. Additional the project involved training teachers to use phonemic awareness based activities to improve reading skills of those students. Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in words. We know that a student's skill in phonemic awareness is a good predictor of later reading success or difficulty. Using multiple baseline design across four participants the current studies investigated the effectiveness of using phonemic awareness based activities to improve decoding skills of third grade students referred for reading disabilities in Oman. During treatment students received phonemic awareness based activities that were designed to fulfill the idiosyncratic characteristics of Arabic language phonology as well as orthography. Results indicated that the phonemic awareness based activities were effective in substantially increasing the number of correctly decoded word for all four participants. Maintenance of strategy effects was evident for the weeks following the termination of intervention for the four students. In addition, the effects of intervention generalized to decoding novel words for all four participants.

Keywords: learning disabilities, phonemic awareness, third graders, Oman

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Authors: Aabha Chaubey, Bani Bhattacharya

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Evaluation of the quality of teaching in engineering education in India needs to be conducted on a continuous basis to achieve the best teaching quality in technical education. Quality teaching is an influential factor in technical education which impacts largely on learning outcomes of the students. Present study is not exclusively theory-driven, but it draws on various specific concepts and constructs in the domain of technical education. These include teaching and learning in higher education, teacher effectiveness, and teacher evaluation and performance management in higher education. Student Evaluation of Education Quality (SEEQ) was proposed as one of the evaluation instruments of the quality teaching in engineering education. SEEQ is one of the popular and standard instrument widely utilized all over the world and bears the validity and reliability in educational world. The present study was designed to evaluate the teaching quality through SEEQ in the context of technical education in India, including its validity and reliability based on the collected data. The multiple dimensionality of SEEQ that is present in every teaching and learning process made it quite suitable to collect the feedback of students regarding the quality of instructions and instructor. The SEEQ comprises of 9 original constructs i.e.; learning value, teacher enthusiasm, organization, group interaction, and individual rapport, breadth of coverage, assessment, assignments and overall rating of particular course and instructor with total of 33 items. In the present study, a total of 350 samples comprising first year undergraduate students from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT, Kharagpur, India) were included for the evaluation of the importance of SEEQ. They belonged to four different courses of different streams of engineering studies. The above studies depicted the validity and reliability of SEEQ was based upon the collected data. This further needs Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Analysis of Moment structure (AMOS) for various scaled instrument like SEEQ Cronbach’s alpha which are associated with SPSS for the examination of the internal consistency. The evaluation of the effectiveness of SEEQ in CFA is implemented on the basis of fit indices such as CMIN/df, CFI, GFI, AGFI and RMSEA readings. The major findings of this study showed the fitness indices such as ChiSq = 993.664,df = 390,ChiSq/df = 2.548,GFI = 0.782,AGFI = 0.736,CFI = 0.848,RMSEA = 0.062,TLI = 0.945,RMR = 0.029,PCLOSE = 0.006. The final analysis of the fit indices presented positive construct validity and stability, on the other hand a higher reliability was also depicted which indicated towards internal consistency. Thus, the study suggests the effectivity of SEEQ as the indicator of the quality evaluation instrument in teaching-learning process in engineering education in India. Therefore, it is expected that with the continuation of this research in engineering education there remains a possibility towards the betterment of the quality of the technical education in India. It is also expected that this study will provide an empirical and theoretical logic towards locating a construct or factor related to teaching, which has the greatest impact on teaching and learning process in a particular course or stream in engineering education.

Keywords: confirmatory factor analysis, engineering education, SEEQ, teaching and learning process

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Authors: Tolga Arda Eraslan

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The quality of the indoor environment is significant to occupants’ health, comfort, and productivity, as Covid-19 spread throughout the world, people started spending most of their time indoors. Since buildings are getting bigger, mechanical ventilation systems are widely used where natural ventilation is insufficient. Four primary tasks of a ventilation system have been identified indoor air quality, comfort, contamination control, and energy performance. To fulfill such requirements, air diffusers, which are a part of the ventilation system, have begun to enter our lives in different airflow distribution systems. Detailed observations are needed to assure that such devices provide high levels of comfort effectiveness and energy efficiency. This study addresses these needs. The objective of this article is to observe air characterizations of different air diffusers at different angles and their effect on people by the thermal comfort model in CFD simulation and to validate the outputs with the help of data results based on a simulated office room. Office room created to provide validation; Equipped with many thermal sensors, including head height, tabletop, and foot level. In addition, CFD simulations were carried out by measuring the temperature and velocity of the air coming out of the supply diffuser. The results considering the flow interaction between diffusers and surroundings showed good visual illustration.

Keywords: computational fluid dynamics, fanger’s model, predicted mean vote, thermal comfort

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Authors: Jiexuan Lin, Huiyi Chen

Abstract:

The development of L2 pronunciation competence remains understudied in the literature and it is not clear what may influence learners’ development of L2 pronunciation. The present study was an attempt to find out which of the two common factors in L2 acquisition, i.e., foreign language anxiety or self-perceived L2 proficiency, can better predict Chinese EFL learners’ pronunciation performance. 78 first-year English majors, who had received a three-month pronunciation training course, were asked to 1) fill out a questionnaire on foreign language classroom anxiety, 2) self-report their L2 proficiency in general, in speaking and in pronunciation, and 3) complete an oral and a written test on their L2 pronunciation (the score of the oral part indicates participants’ pronunciation proficiency in oral production, and the score of the written part indexes participants’ ability in applying pronunciation knowledge in comprehension.) Results showed that the pronunciation scores were negatively correlated with the anxiety scores, and were positively correlated with the self-perceived pronunciation proficiency. But only the written scores in the L2 pronunciation test, not the oral scores, were positively correlated with the L2 self-perceived general proficiency. Neither the oral nor the written scores in the L2 pronunciation test had a significant correlation with the self-perceived speaking proficiency. Given the fairly strong correlations, the anxiety scores and the self-perceived pronunciation proficiency were put in regression models to predict L2 pronunciation performance. The anxiety factor alone accounted for 13.9% of the variance and the self-perceived pronunciation proficiency alone explained 12.1% of the variance. But when both anxiety scores and self-perceived pronunciation proficiency were put in a stepwise regression model, only the anxiety scores had a significant and unique contribution to the L2 pronunciation performance (4.8%). Taken together, the results suggested that the learners’ anxiety level could better predict their L2 pronunciation performance, compared with the self-perceived proficiency levels. The obtained data have the following pedagogical implications. 1) Given the fairly strong correlation between anxiety and L2 pronunciation performance, the instructors who are interested in predicting learners’ L2 pronunciation proficiency may measure their anxiety level, instead of their proficiency, as the predicting variable. 2) The correlation of oral scores (in the pronunciation test) with pronunciation proficiency, rather than with speaking proficiency, indicates that a) learners after receiving some amounts of training are to some extent able to evaluate their own pronunciation ability, implying the feasibility of incorporating self-evaluation and peer comments in course instruction; b) the ‘proficiency’ measure used to predict pronunciation performance should be used with caution. The proficiency of specific skills seemingly highly related to pronunciation (i.e., speaking in this case) may not be taken for granted as an effective predictor for pronunciation performance. 3) The correlation between the written scores with general L2 proficiency is interesting.

Keywords: anxiety, Chinese EFL learners, L2 pronunciation, self-perceived L2 proficiency

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Authors: Katie Jerram, Jacqui Nevols, Rebecca Howes, Hayley Richardson, Debbie Suso, Thomas Batten, Reny Mathai

Abstract:

Pyomyositis is an uncommon acute purulent skeletal muscle infection, usually caused by Staphylococcus aureus, occurring either spontaneously or following local trauma. Immunocompromise is a risk factor. It presents with pyrexia, pain, and tenderness of the affected muscle, which may have a firm ‘woody’ feel. Management usually involves surgery and prolonged courses of antibiotics, but alongside these active treatments, palliation of symptoms such as pain is also a priority. A short case series of diabetic inpatients under the care of the Renal Medicine team with pyomyositis is presented, demonstrating that Hospital Palliative Care Teams may be well placed to provide symptom management advice by working jointly with the patient’s medical or surgical team. A review of the literature on the management of pain in pyomyositis is also presented, and there was no clear consensus on the best strategy. It may be that a combination of analgesics and adjuncts is the most effective strategy, perhaps combined with the holistic approach used within palliative care.

Keywords: pyomyositis, pain, palliation, analgesia

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Authors: Revoti Prasad Bora, Nikita Katyal

Abstract:

Promotion is a key element in the retail business. Thus, analysis of promotions to quantify their effectiveness in terms of Revenue and/or Margin is an essential activity in the retail industry. However, measuring the sales/revenue uplift is based on estimations, as the actual sales/revenue without the promotion is not present. Further, the presence of Halo and Cannibalization in a multiple parallel promotions’ scenario complicates the problem. Calculating Baseline by considering inter-brand/competitor items or using Halo and Cannibalization's impact on Revenue calculations by considering Baseline as an interpretation of items’ unit sales in neighboring nonpromotional weeks individually may not capture the overall Revenue uplift in the case of multiple parallel promotions. Hence, this paper proposes a Machine Learning based method for calculating the Revenue uplift by considering the Halo and Cannibalization impact on the Baseline and the Revenue. In the first section of the proposed methodology, Baseline of an item is calculated by incorporating the impact of the promotions on its related items. In the later section, the Revenue of an item is calculated by considering both Halo and Cannibalization impacts. Hence, this methodology enables correct calculation of the overall Revenue uplift due a given promotion.

Keywords: Halo, Cannibalization, promotion, Baseline, temporary price reduction, retail, elasticity, cross price elasticity, machine learning, random forest, linear regression

Procedia PDF Downloads 171

Authors: D. M. Bassuney, W. A. Ibrahim, Medhat A. E. Moustafa

Abstract:

Appropriate start-up of an anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR) is considered to be the most delicate and important issue in the anaerobic process, and depends on several factors such as wastewater composition, reactor configuration, inoculum and operating conditions. In this work, the start-up performance of an ABR with working volume of 30 liters, fed continuously with synthetic food industrial wastewater along with semi-batch study to measure the methangenic activity by specific methanogenic activity (SMA) test were carried out at various organic loading rates (OLRs) to determine the best OLR used to start up the reactor. The comparison was based on COD removal efficiencies, start-up time, pH stability and methane production. An OLR of 1.8 Kg COD/m3d (5400 gCOD/m3 and 3 days HRT) showed best overall performance with COD removal efficiency of 94.44% after four days from the feeding and methane production of 3802 ml/L with an overall SMA of 0.36 gCH4-COD/gVS.d

Keywords: anaerobic baffled reactor, anaerobic reactor start-up, food industrial wastewater, specific methanogenic activity

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Authors: J. Wozniak-Holecka, T. Holecki, P. Romaniuk

Abstract:

Spa facilities are being perceived as the ways of healing treatment in Poland and are guaranteed within the public financing. The universal health insurance (National Health Fund, NFZ), and the disability prevention programme held by Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) are the main sources of financing spa facilities. The dominant public payer of spa services is the NFZ. The Social Insurance Institution covers the cost of health treatment realized in spa facilities as medical rehabilitation, in the field of disability prevention. Health services delivered in the spa resorts are characterized by complexity, and the combination of various methods, typical for health prevention, education, balneotherapy, and physiotherapy. Healing with natural methods, believed to enhance the therapeutic effect, is also involved in health spa treatment. Regardless of the type of facility, each form of spa treatment includes health promotion, health education, prevention at all levels, including rehabilitation. The aim of the study was to determine the optimal organization of health education process. Its efficiency strongly depends on the type of service provider and the funding institution (NFZ vs ZUS). It results from the use of different measures of the effectiveness, the quality and the evaluation of the process being assessed by funding institutions. The methods of the study include a comparative and descriptive quantitative and qualitative analysis. In the empirical part, a questionnaire had been developed. It was then distributed among spa personnel, responsible directly for the health promotion, and among patients who are beneficiaries of health services in spa centers. The quantitative part of the study was based on interviews carried with the use of the online survey (CAWI: Computer-Assisted Web Interview), telephone survey (CATI: Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview) and a conventional questionnaire (PAPI: Paper over Pencil Interview). As a result of the conducted research, it was found that the effectiveness of health education activities in spa resort facilities in Poland is higher when the services are organized using structured tools for managerial control. This applies to formalized procedures implemented by one of the dominant payers covering costs of services (ZUS) and involves the application of health education as one of the mandatory elements of treatment, subjected to the process of control during the course of spa therapy and evaluation after it is completed.

Keywords: effectiveness, health education, public health system, spa treatment

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Authors: Chien-Yeh Hsu, Yuan-Ching Chiang, Zi-Jie Chien, Sih-Li Chen

Abstract:

In this study, a field experiment and performance analysis of air-tunnel heat exchanger integrated with water-filled raft foundation of residential building were performed. In order to obtain better performance, conventional applications of air-tunnel inevitably have high initial cost or issues about insufficient installation space. To improve the feasibility of air tunnel heat exchanger in high-density housing, an integrated system consisting of air pipes immersed in the water-filled raft foundation was presented, taking advantage of immense amount of water and relatively stable temperature in raft foundation of building. The foundation-integrated air tunnel was applied to a residential building located in Yilan, Taiwan, and its thermal performance was measured in the field experiment. The results indicated that the cooling potential of integrated system was close to the potential of soil-based EAHE at 2 m depth or deeper. An analytical model based on thermal resistance method was validated by measurement results, and was used to carry out the dimensioning of foundation-integrated air tunnel. The discrepancies between calculated value and measured data were less than 2.7%. In addition, the return-on-investment with regard to thermal performance and economics of the application was evaluated. Because the installation for air tunnel is scheduled in the building foundation construction, the utilization of integrated system spends less construction cost compare to the conventional earth-air tunnel.

Keywords: air tunnel, ground heat exchanger, raft foundation, residential building

Procedia PDF Downloads 324